In a book deal worth £2.5 million, Amanda Knox, whose conviction for the
murder of Meredith Kercher was overturned, will at last reveal her side of
the story.

In all the millions of words written and broadcast about Amanda Knox – a prosecutor famously called her “a she-devil”; an Italian commentator said she had “the face of an angel, but the eyes of a killer”; while her family praised her as “smart, fun, affectionate and loyal” – it can be easy to forget that so few of them have been uttered by Knox herself.

When the 24 year-old returned home to Seattle last October, with her conviction for murdering Meredith Kercher sensationally overturned, she spoke for only a minute, expressing gratitude to her supporters and a desire to return to a normal life with her family. Local newspapers signed an agreement to leave her in peace.

Soon, however, we are going to hear a lot more from her. On Thursday she agreed the inevitable publishing deal to write a “full and unflinching” account of the events that led up to her incarceration in an Italian jail for almost four years. Beating off bids from some 20 rival publishers, HarperCollins has paid her a sum thought to be in the region of $4 million – or some £2.5 million.

Is such a figure economically justifiable? And perhaps more importantly, is any sum morally justifiable given the fierce debate over Knox’s innocence, the ongoing legal appeal in Perugia and the fact that at the heart of the story lies a family still grieving the brutal murder of an innocent young woman?

“No one here has lost sight of the enormity of the fact that Meredith was killed,” says Anne Bremner, a Seattle-based lawyer and a spokeswoman for the Friends of Amanda Support Group. “But there’s widespread belief in Amanda’s innocence. And when something horrible happens, people all over the world are interested in how you get through it.”

People in America are certainly fascinated. Knox chose as her representative Robert B. Barnett, a lawyer better known for negotiating book deals for presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton – and Sir Elton John. Publishing executives found her charming, thoughtful and well-read. “Everybody fell in love with her,” said one.

At home Knox is widely viewed as an innocent abroad, the attractive, all-American victim of an antediluvian Italian justice system. Her supporters see nothing wrong with her telling her side of the story while recouping her family’s legal costs, thought to be in the region of $1 million. HarperCollins, meanwhile, will hope to recoup some of its huge advance in television deals and newspaper serialisations.

A positive balance sheet is far from guaranteed, however. “I think it’s very risky money,” says Ed Victor, the London-based literary agent whose clients range from Keith Richards to Alastair Campbell and Frederick Forsyth. “But all advances at that level are risky. A lot will depend on whom they hire as the collaborator. It has to be written well.”

HarperCollins hasn’t released the name of the ghostwriter, but one imagines they will have their work cut out. Not only is the book scheduled for publication early next year, they will also have to tread the fine line of polishing Knox’s prose without losing her voice. Although Knox is said to have harboured long-standing dreams of becoming a writer, extracts from her prison diaries – some of which were given to investigators in an attempt to clear her name and were later leaked to newspapers – suggest that she has a little way to go. One poem read: “Do you know me? Open your eyes and see that when it is said I am an angel, or I am a devil, or I am a lost girl, recognise that what is really lost is: the truth!”

In the British market, Knox’s book will face far greater challenges than the quality of her ghosted prose. “I don’t think the book will be huge here because a lot of British sympathies are with the British victim,” says Victor.

Jon Howells, a spokesman for Waterstone’s, also strikes a cautionary note. “This is a book that the country will feel very sensitively about,” he says. “It is one of the most tragic, emotive and widely talked about cases of recent years. But it’s impossible to predict whether that interest will transmit into book sales.”

The interest in the O J Simpson case, for example, did not lead to good sales for his book, If I Did It. And while many pundits are comparing Knox’s book to Jaycee Dugard’s A Stolen Life, the memoir of the Californian girl held against her will for 18 years which has sold more than a million copies since last July, Victor thinks the comparison unhelpful. “She was the victim of a crime, not the putative perpetrator of a crime,” he says. “And that’s a big difference. You could say she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice – but so are a lot of people.”

Of course, the main reason people will read Knox’s book will be to try to work out for themselves – yet again – which one they think she is: perpetrator or victim. There have been acres of newsprint, a dozen books and a spectacularly ill-judged film for American television – but this is the first time that we will hear from Knox herself. The book, said a spokesman for HarperCollins, will be “very thoughtful, reflective and serious”, moving it away “from the world of tabloids”.

Interestingly, even those sceptical of the book’s success defend the decision to publish it. “Our job is not to censor,” says Howells. “It is to put in front of people the books which we think they want to read.”

Victor, for his part, says that he would have represented Knox, if he’d been approached. “People are entitled to a defence,” he says. “And they’re entitled to a literary agent.”

It’s an entitlement that almost everyone involved appears to have taken up in the last few months. Even Peter Kercher, Meredith’s father, a freelance journalist who has repeatedly spoken with dignity of the pain caused by Knox’s celebrity status – and his dread of Knox selling her story – has signed a deal with Hodder to publish a book next April about his daughter.

Meanwhile, Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend and co-defendant, has recently engaged Andrew Gumbel, a respected British journalist based in America, to ghost his side of the story.

“The book will be a lot of things: a love story, a harrowing description of an innocent young man in prison, a full-blooded Italian family drama, and a legal thriller,” says Gumbel. “But these are not the only reasons I got involved: what happened to Raffaele and Amanda was inexcusable and unconscionable, and my intention is to get to the bottom of exactly why they were targeted.”

Gumbel denies he’s cashing in on a brutal murder. “I know that, in Raffaele’s case, no day has gone by without him thinking of Meredith and the hell her family has gone through,” he says. “We are not 'cashing in’ on her death, but rather illuminating the way the Italian police and judiciary compounded the tragedy by throwing two young people into prison for no good reason. Their stories – both their stories – deserve to be heard and I believe it is important that they are.”

And so after the trials by the courts in Perugia – and the trial by media – comes the trial by autobiography.